The Sun's Wrath: Naruto Omake
by AxlMaster
Summary: In the darkest hour, hope can still shine through like the glorious sun and moon. Something of a Naruto/Exalted crossover. Warning: Contains fatality-style violence. R&R!


** Author's Note:**I am not an Exalted aficionado. I've read a fair bit about it from the wikis and heard from a few of my more RP-oriented friends, but I've largely remained unfamiliar with it. But from what I've seen, it's made of concentrated awesome. I'm not kidding. Some of the Exalted – people chosen by gods – can do the absolute absurd. Solar Exalted can jump clean over the clouds with ease, and in the amazingly ridiculous fic "Glorious Shotgun Princess," Femshep LITERALLY PUNCHES THE SICK OUT OF THANE KRIOS!

But the bit I liked the most, aside from the obvious physics defying asskickery, was the idea that some Exalted are tied together through reincarnations, namely Solar and Lunar. Oftentimes the two Exalted were connected as friends or lovers. So I wondered how that whole dynamic could be translated into Naruto, and thus this omake was born. I used the versions of Naruto and Sakura in my story Shinobi of Fire, Wind, and Ice in case there's any confusion. Enjoy!

* * *

In a large rocky clearing, Sakura and Naruto from Konoha was being obliterated by a foe they had once hoped to save. The madman Sasuke Uchiha had awakened the terrifying Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan with one goal in mind.

Kill. Everyone.

He'd been following that purpose to the letter. Sasuke had been traveling across the Land of Fire, cutting through everyone he came across in a straight line to Konoha. No doubt he intended to annihilate the village. Naruto refused to sit by and wait until Sasuke came to them and slipped out in the night. Sakura knew he'd try something brash, and joined the jinchuuriki in the hopes they could at least slow down Sasuke's advance while the village prepared their defenses.

They hadn't.

With his new-found power, Sasuke had attacked too strong and too fast for either of them to react. His incredible Sharingan had kept the Nine-Tailed Fox from helping in the fight, so Naruto had to rely on his own skills, and despite all his training and hellish effort, it was utterly ineffective against the merciless onslaught his former teammate and friend unleashed on them. Sasuke held Naruto's life in his bloodied hands.

"You think you can possibly stop me?" Sasuke sneered at Naruto's bleeding and bruised face.

"I already did it once before." He sneered.

Sasuke tried to contain a fierce snarl at this hunk of flesh who even when confronted with death still spat out tiresome lines like he was some philosopher. With no visible effort, Sasuke picked him up by the neck, his eyes flaring with demonic light as he did. The opponent who had bested him before would now suffer pain at his hands. With nowhere to run or hide, without any clever plans or sudden rescues from his downed teammate, the young shinobi would surely die by Sasuke's blade. Naruto strained against the titanium grip fastened around his throat, but to no avail. Even with Naruto's Sage Mode, his efforts had proved completely useless against this psychotic juggernaut that now drew a menacing serrated sword. But in spite of his oncoming death, Naruto remained forever defiant, spitting some blood right in Sasuke's face.

"Mmmm." Sasuke hummed as he began licking the blood off his own face.

"I've waited so long to do that." The friend who'd held him for back so long, who tried to deny him his right to revenge was now in his grasp. He brought his blade up. With the touch of a button it lit with a sinister black flame, a devastating utilization of Amaterasu. Sasuke sneered in joy at the thrill of finally slaying Naruto. Sakura lay nearby, injured in the battle but fully conscious of the horror before her. Her friend was now a monster with every intention to slaughter every last one of them, and he was going to start with Naruto, the one she loved more than anything. It couldn't end like this. It just couldn't!

"Goodbye, Naruto."

"Sasuke, please don't do this!"

Sasuke ignored Sakura's tearful pleas, and rammed his blade straight through Naruto's heart with a sickening sound of metal burning and tearing through flesh and bone. A faint splatter of blood fell from the blade as it came out Naruto's back. Naruto looked back at his old enemy with a shocked and pained stare while Sakura screamed, her voice drowning out Naruto's senses as he realized that he'd failed. Sasuke had won, and would continue killing until Konoha was wiped out. Sasuke himself merely grinned, keeping the blade lodged through Naruto's heart to ensure the flames would burn it to ash. It was the worse pain Naruto had ever felt, and he couldn't do a damn thing about it. He couldn't even scream

With a mad chuckle, Sasuke pulled out the blade, taking a small chunk of Naruto's heart with it, and kicked his body away like a hunk of meat. Naruto spun through the air and bounced along the ground while a trail of blood followed his path. Naruto collapsed in a pained heap next to Sakura. She couldn't believe this was happening.

"No..."

Naruto gasped as blood spurted onto his coat. Sakura crawled up next to him. Naruto was somehow still breathing.

"No please. Don't die Naruto, please!" She begged. Naruto's eyes were staring straight up at the sky. They were glossy and out of focus as he lay there, dying next to the person he'd always sworn to protect. Who inspired him to grow stronger, who'd become the greatest thing in his life. Now he was going to be reduced to a corpse in her arms before Sasuke inevitably killed her.

"Naruto, look at me, look at me!" Naruto's eyes couldn't even move to try to comfort her. He was utterly useless. Broken, bleeding and on the verge of death. He had failed to become Hokage, and had failed to protect his village and the people he knew and loved. Sakura would die at the hands of a man she once loved, over the corpse of the man who'd been her friend and became the one she loved above all else. Naruto couldn't stop it. For once, there was nothing he could do.

"_I guess..I guess it's time to fade away."_ His mind seemed to leave his body. Naruto felt like he was floating up through a dark tunnel, and he could faintly see a light in the distance. He reluctantly welcomed it.

"_It'll be nice to rest."_ Naruto mused...Everything went dark around him.

"I think not, boy!" A voice shouted in complete anger with power that shook Naruto to the core.

Suddenly, Naruto felt himself falling and plummeting back down to his body. He collided with the ground, despite being a spirit at this point, and sunk back into his body like quicksand. The pain came rushing back and filled his entire being with the unbearable agony of the sword-hole in his chest. But the weird thing was that he wasn't dying, if anything he could see just fine. That shouldn't be possible. But what he saw around him made even less sense.

He was back in the room with Sakura 's tears falling on his face. But the tears were suspended in midair, and there was absolutely no movement from anywhere in the room. The towering, bloodied form of Sasuke was completely still. Everything looked like it was frozen in time, and Naruto himself couldn't move at all, though he wasn't sure if it was because of the gaping hole or because he too was frozen. Was Naruto hallucinating? Was this a dream? Naruto's body proved otherwise, as his somehow stilled heart pulsed with unbearable pain. But it still didn't make any sense.

"Are you so foolish to abandon this world?" Naruto looked up to see who was responsible for this phenomenon around him. It was an old man. He wore a white, full-length kimono with six magatama around the very tall collar. He had a very long chin goatee that reached to his waist, and spiky shoulder length hair, both of which were pale-red. His skin was very pale, and bore many wrinkles of old-age. On his lap rested a long black staff made of unknown material, with a crescent shape on one end, and a full circle with several rings on it. Naruto's first instinct was that they looked like the moon and sun.

But what surprised Naruto the most – other than the fact this man seemed to be floating – was his eyes. They had the familiar gray color and circles of the Rinnegan, and he sported a third, red eye on his forehead. This person looked like a god to Naruto. Glowing, hovering, and looking utterly pissed.

"Well?" Naruto coughed up some of his blood.

"Well what?" He questioned.

"How could you give up so easily!?" Naruto looked at the god, then his wound, then back up at the still angry god again.

"I suffered a slight setback genius, and furthermore, who are you?" The god disappeared in the air and reappeared over Naruto with a godly scowl. Naruto feared the god would give him a horrible curse for daring to speak to him with such a tone. Instead he got slapped on the cheek, harder than Sakura ever did. Naruto's already intense pain was now exasperated by the god's open palm.

"Who I am is not important Naruto. What is important is that your friends are about to be slaughtered by a genocidal maniac who will never stop killing,"

Naruto winced at the undeniable truth, but failed to connect the dots, but the man continued.

"and you let something like a stab wound stop you? I thought you were stronger than this."

"In case you weren't paying attention, I couldn't do a damn thing against Sasuke! The guy took on both of us without breaking a sweat! We couldn't penetrate his Susanoo, Sakura was beaten before she could do anything, and I was just used as a goddamn flail! Nothing I did could even slow him down, and what's more, " Naruto indicated to his newly made and still-bleeding hole where almost none of his heart remained.

"I just got impaled through my heart you moron!"

"So does that mean you shall just let the void take you? You shall just let yourself die!?"

Naruto scowled from his pain and the man's words.

"Of course not!" He sputtered. The man's eyes narrowed. He gently lifted Naruto's head to look back at Sakura.

"Look at her." he commanded. Naruto frown faded as he looked at the horrified tears of the woman he loved, whom he would sacrifice anything for.

He couldn't save her..

"Look at them all." Naruto's vision seemed to fly out of the clearing and hovered over his home village. Kakashi-sensei, Yamato, Sai, all their friends preparing to fight against an enemy they couldn't possibly defeat. Naruto's gaze turned sour as he thought of how they'd all die.

His train of thought and eagle-eye vision was cut short when the god slapped him again, probably reading his thoughts.

"That way of thinking will not help you at all Naruto!" He snarled.

"But I can't do anything else now besides think and wait to die...Again!" The man sighed, and set Naruto's head back down. The god uncrossed his legs from his hovering kneel to stand on the ground, strolling back to where he first appeared in front of Naruto, the whole time looking away from him. His staff rested on his back, held there by some unknown force. The god crossed his hands behind his back as he stood still, possibly in deep thought or to compose himself. Naruto saw on his coat was a large Rinnegan with nine magatama arranged in three rows beneath it.

"Would you simply let this world burn?" Naruto's eyes widened.

"What?"

"ANSWER ME. Would you let yourself die as the people, your friends and comrades fell in droves? Will you simply let yourself fall into the void as this world burns!?" He commanded with shockingly calm but loud tone.

Naruto looked back up at the sky, thousands of images of people and places he'd known and loved rushed through his mind as a blur. The people that he'd come to know and love, would all die. The village of Konoha, the Lands of Wind, Earth, Water, Lightning. The whole of the shinobi world would fall under the heel of this monster he once called friend. But...Naruto couldn't pin it down, but he felt something building deep inside him. An intense flame hotter than the sun itself.

No. He cared too damn much about the world to let it fall to any villain. That realization filled him with a resolve to respond. To fight.

"No." That was all he needed to say to the god.

"Good." The man turned back to look at Naruto with a determined and challenging stare.

"I have two words for you Naruto Uzumaki of Konoha." The man's voice boomed and echoed with divine power. He raised his staff and pointed the ring-adorned circle to Naruto, daring him yet at the same time granting him the essence of something. Some unknown essence older than the world, older than history itself.

"Get. Up." The staff glowed a bright gold that bathed Naruto in its warm light.

"Naruto, please. Please look at me." Sakura pleaded to her dear one's body with faint hope that was dying rapidly as he failed to move. She couldn't bear to see him die. She loved him too much to accept that he'd just disappear. But she couldn't help but feel responsible. First he had suffered so much pain to bring back Sasuke those years ago, and now he would die at the hands of that former friend. She felt responsible for every cut and bruise because she failed to keep him safe in Konoha. To Sakura it felt like he was destined to suffer because of her. Sakura's tears fell over him, her dear baka.

Her dear Naruto.

"No..."

"No, damnit! You are not dying on me moron!" Sakura's palms glowed with a deep green light. She placed her hands on Naruto's chest as the healing jutsu took effect. Nobody, not even death itself was going to take him from this world, from her. She'd seen far too many people die to let it happen to him. Orochimaru's attack, Pain's attack. So many people died, and she'd been unable to save them, or even comfort them in their final hours. She would not let that happen again. Despite all her medical knowledge screaming in her mind that this was completely pointless, she couldn't give up. Death would not win here. She channeled all her power into her healing technique, pushing beyond her limits to heal her Naruto. This would work. It had to! Every fiber in Sakura's being was now focused on this one task. Of defying death itself.

"Hm?"

Somewhere beyond reality and dreams, Sakura's resolve and emotions reached the god's eyes.

Naruto's conscious had left the god's realm to return to his body, leaving him alone once again. But despite all logic, the emotions of one woman had reached him. He let a faint smile form on his face. He hadn't felt something like this since he was a young man centuries ago. Sakura's emotions of determination, courage, and love were like a shining lighthouse in an impenetrable storm. Mortal beings were the most amazing creatures of all.

"I suppose this is appropriate. The sun and moon should exist together after all." He twirled his staff overhead, and pointed the crescent-shaped end at Sakura's defiant form. The staff began to glow with a pure white light.

Sakura's strength waned as she pumped more and more chakra into her technique. Naruto hadn't shown any sign of life, but she refused to give in. Death wouldn't win today! As she continued, Sakura could swear she felt something burning on her hand. It was probably her jutsu beginning to take it's toll on her stamina. She was slowing down.

But then...Naruto coughed. His body heaved as he hacked up a disturbing amount of blood to the side, away from Sakura. He was moving, and breathing. He was somehow alive with a gigantic hole in his chest. Sakura was hardly used to a scenario like this, and she could scarcely believe what she was seeing. Naruto slowly turned to look back at her with a smile.

"Hey there Sakura." He strained.

"Naruto." She whispered. "Don't leave me, you moron." Naruto placed a hand on her neck.

"Trust me Sakura. I'm here to stay." He pulled the pink-haired girl into a deep kiss. No way in hell would he ever give up when he had people he loved.

Nearby, Sasuke was laughing like a maniac with his sword hanging over his shoulder, Naruto's blood still sticking to the blade. The two broke the kiss, and Naruto glared at the mad Uchiha. He looked back up at Sakura with a reassuring gaze, communicating to her that everything would be fine. She could hardly believe he had such an attitude, but she nodded in response, lifting his hand from her neck. Naruto grinned, and gripped her hand tightly. His eyes closed before opening with the glow of his Sage Mode. But Sakura could see something was...Different in them. There was a strange power in them that felt utterly alien to her, but strangely reassuring.

Naruto rolled over onto his side to Sakura and slammed his fist into the ground, cracking it into shards. The blow was loud enough to elicit the attention of the still cackling Sasuke. His grin instantly died as he saw the impossible. Naruto, the foe whom he'd literally impaled through his heart, moving. And grinning.

"What. The. Fuck?" Naruto moved his arm to a position to push himself off the ground slowly. Sakura provided support to him while Sasuke continued to look aghast. This wasn't possible. Even for the knuckle-headed ninja this wasn't possible. His heart had been incinerated!

"What are you Naruto?" Naruto looked back at the Uchiha with shining golden eyes.

"I'm a normal human being with a demon inside me Sasuke. I've just got a few tricks up my sleeve that you couldn't comprehend, in fact, I still don't understand them."

Naruto managed to move his feet to stand, and shakily rose, hunched over and panting, but undoubtedly alive and pissed. Sasuke snarled, katana in hand. The ground exploded beneath him as he attacked Naruto, swinging his blade down on him and Sakura. But the blade was stopped midair by Naruto's bare hand. Sakura and Sasuke were both shocked as the serrated sword remained affixed and unmoving in an iron grip that wasn't being scratched even slightly by the sword.

"How is this possible? You should be dead!" Sasuke shouted.

"I think I was. But an old man and a little cherry blossom showed me that I couldn't just let myself croak." Naruto responded with a big dumb grin. Sasuke growled at this arrogant and moronic fool who had somehow defied death itself. With that hole he made in his chest, Naruto shouldn't even be talking. As if in response to his thoughts, Naruto pulled back his tattered shirt to show the gaping hole was still there. His heart however, was intact and still beating. It looked like it had never been pierced or reduced to chunks. Sasuke had seen impressive healing abilities, but the likes of this should only be with a Tailed Beasts help, and Sasuke had effectively suppressed the Nine-Tails before the fight even began. Naruto was alone on that front, so how in the hell was he still alive and strong enough to catch Sasuke's sword!?

"Death itself isn't going to stop me Sasuke. I've got too much too live for, you should know that by now." He chuckled as he felt a slight burning sensation in his hand like a sunburn. Naruto chuckled, and adjusted his grip on the sword to pull Sasuke closer to him, letting out a fierce and defiant grin.

**Thirty Seconds to Mars – This is War**

"I'll make sure you never take a life ever again!" Naruto's free hand collided with Sasuke's angry face with a loud crunch. The Uchiha flew back like a ragdoll, skidding and bouncing along the floor before colliding with a boulder with painful force. There was a large crater where he hit before he fell onto the floor. That one blow had severely damaged his body. Spurts of blood flew out of his body and he could feel chunks of rock were stuck in 's neck creaked as he looked back up to see Naruto in an odd stance. His arms were drawn back behind him, like he was preparing a double punch, but he wasn't anywhere near close enough to actually hit Sasuke.

But then, Naruto's arms glowed with a bizarre golden light. Sasuke readied his sword. He had already killed Naruto, and he would do so again. Naruto's eyes were glowing bright gold as he parted his lips in a growl that terrified Sasuke in its ferocity. Naruto spoke words that spontaneously appeared in his mind.

"SOLAR ART," Sasuke's world seemed to slow around him. It was like time distorted, and he could hardly move as Naruto fired an energy slash from his right arm. The flame barely left his sleeve before his other arm punched forward and fired another burst. Then his right did it. Then his left.

Right. Left. Right. Left right left right left right left right.

Faster and faster with each passing moment. His arms turned into black & orange blurs, firing more and more shots from his arms in mere seconds. Sasuke couldn't even react. The blasts hit him, exploding instantly and at the same time slowly burning his body with an intensity matched only by his own black flames. Sasuke's mind was overcome with one single thought. This wasn't possible. This wasn't possible. This! Wasn't! Possible!

"JINCHUURIKI'S, " In a split second, Sasuke could feel hundreds of flames slamming into him, going faster and faster. That damn Naruto had tapped into strength that defied physics and reality, that had made a mockery of death itself and was bouncing back stronger than ever before. From Sakura's perspective, she couldn't distinguish one strike from another. They seemed like thousands and thousands of attacks that hit Sasuke before he couldn't even move to dodge. Naruto's arms moved with speed she couldn't even register. It was like his arms moved slowly, yet were distorting the air around them, and creating tiny visible cones of compressed air and fire in front of him with each blow. He didn't let up at all, and in fact he kept moving faster and faster, snarling and refusing to stop his barrage. He wouldn't rest until Sasuke was dead. No, not just dead, but completely obliterated. This would end! NOW!

"DIVINE WRAAAATH!" The barrage reached its apex of ferocity and speed in an endless stream of golden energy blasts, every single one of them tearing clean through Sasuke's seemingly indestructible body. Naruto's entire body was now letting out a bright gold aura that flared out behind him as his volley kept attacking and annihilating Sasuke, slowly but surely pushing him back into the boulder.

Naruto was screaming his lungs out. A mighty yell that signified his defiance of death, and rejecting Sasuke Uchiha's will to destroy. But most of all, it was Naruto screaming against all who would dare attack his home, his friends, his loved ones. No matter who came, regardless of their strength, they would all fail at his hands. They would know the name of Naruto Uzumaki!

Sasuke's body spasmed in the barrage of pain that had no end in sight. The skin was peeled off and muscle punched straight through to what few organs he had left. He was pushed deeper and deeper into the boulder, suspended with his arms stretched out on either side of him. His eyes rolled back into his head as the barrage finally stopped. But Naruto was not done by any stretch.

Naruto drew back both arms, and they flared with flame's more intense than anything he ever made in one final effort. Stronger than the Rasengan or Rasenshuriken, empowered by the god's gift. His hair and black coat flapped, the fires creating the force of a hurricane around him. Naruto bared his teeth and let out a guttural growl, readying his last move. Sakura felt that same unknown but warm power flowing from him. It felt like the warmth of the sun on a summer's day. Sakura couldn't help but feel oddly relaxed as Naruto's voice echoed with a new strength, she didn't notice her own hand glowing a faint white.

"SOLAR ART! SUN'S WRATH!"

He punched forward, creating one gigantic ball of flame that left a trail of fire in its wake until it hit Sasuke Uchiha clean in the chest. The explosion destroyed the boulder around him, and continued deep into the woods, doubling the size of the clearing in its blast. The Uchiha's last thoughts were of pure rage and agony before his being disintegrated in the attack.

Naruto stood, panting from his effort. He looked back at where Sasuke used to be. A few chunks of an arm and his sword were all that remained of the monster that was. Naruto chuckled, but felt that burning sensation on his hand again as he collapsed to his knees.

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted as she rushed to his side. He'd done something impossible, but he could still die. She placed her hand on his chest to help support-wait, chest? She gingerly felt around for the hole, but it was completely gone. His wound was healed with no scars or any sign that he'd been impaled to begin with! Did she do that? Even with all her medical training, she shouldn't have been able to heal him so well. His chest must have healed as he was attacking. But without physical contact, his wound couldn't heal that fast. Not even Tsunade could do something like this!

"Naruto...What the hell happened?" Sakura shifted him into sitting up, and supported his tired, laughing form. He calmed down, and looked back up at the sky

"I had a run in with...Someone. He said I shouldn't stop fighting," He smiled up at her.

"and I never will." She smiled in return, taking his hands into hers and basking in his presence.

But then, his hand burst with a furious golden light that shown throughout the entire clearing like the sun. This was getting insane! Sakura had to know what was happening now! She ripped off Naruto's glove to see the skin, and found something she wasn't familiar with. A symbol.

"Let me see." Naruto muttered, turning his hand to see what had Sakura look utterly confused and yet awed by the sight of it. Naruto's gaze fell upon a golden emblem. Its glow slowly subsided as the burning sensation did. A round, open circle with eight lines surrounding it. The whole shape bore the look of the sun.

But before either one of them could voice a question...

"Humans..."

It was the man again. His voice echoed in both their minds.

"Of all the beings of creation I have seen through my travels, I always end up coming back to the species I originated from." Naruto and Sakura looked at each with great confusion.

"Human emotions have the power to cross the stars and reach the eyes of a god." What sounded like a faint chuckle rang in Sakura and Naruto's mind. They both could feel some incredible aura falling on them, as if focusing on the two.

"Both of you have shown great courage for your ideals, and for each other. Normally I do not get involved, but it is for that reason, your resolves to continue on in the face of the impossible, that I chose a more hands on approach."

Naruto's hand emblem glowed at the man's words with a faint hum. Likewise, Sakura's gloved hand began to emanate a pure white light. She and Naruto shared a confused look before she quickly ripped off her own glove. On her skin was a symbol just like Naruto. But unlike Naruto's it was a pearly-white filled circle, like a full moon. The power she felt radiating from it was truly breathtaking, and filled her with tremendous pride. She couldn't wait to test it out. If her healing abilities had increased so drastically, she wanted to see what it did for her strength, or Naruto's for his multiple chakra types. Naruto himself was very eager to see his power in all its glory.

"Naruto Uzumaki, as the Dawn you wield the power of Solar. Sakura Haruno, as the Full Moon you wield the power of Lunar." The god spoke again.

"You are Exalted, my champions in this world. Destined to fight together. It is an existence that elevates you above normal humans, shinobi, even jinchuurikis" Their hand emblems glowed at the man's words with a faint hum. Sakura tried thinking a question to the god.

"_Are there others like us?"_ The god paused.

"There have been some throughout history. Each one chosen by me to help the shinobi world. Each one carrying the essence of the last to bear that Exalted title. Think of it as reincarnation."

Naruto and Sakura shared another confused look, and both wondered the same thing with equal parts eagerness and nervousness.

"_Does this mean we've had past lives?"_ Naruto spoke with his mind. The god seemed amused.

"Why yes. Yes you have. The Solars and Lunars have often been friends, comrades, or lovers."

Sakura and Naruto blushed faintly, glancing between their emblems and the other's eyes. The thought that they'd had past lives together as lovers was something neither one ever thought of. It was almost too absurd to believe, even for shinobi. But as they gazed deep into each other's eyes, they just knew it was true, they could feel something resonating between them now. Their minds didn't fully know, but their hearts definitely did. Sure they were once petty children, but they had grown into so much more with each other. Now they would do anything for the person they loved. Naruto smiled at Sakura, and she at him. The god almost didn't want to interrupt them. He coughed to regain their attention. In his experience, Solars and Lunars often couldn't get enough of each other.

"On your own, each one of you would be a force to be reckoned with, and proud shinobi of your country. But together you shall be a force without equal. A duo that shall be remembered in song for all of time. As the sun and the moon, you now wield a great power that few in this world bare. Go forth, and use it to help protect this world we all love so much."Again the god chuckled, and the two shinobi felt that strange warmth.

"Never forget your love for this world or for each other. But I doubt that either one of you will fail in that."

The God's aura evaporated back into the air, leaving Naruto and Sakura thoroughly confused and awed. They slowly looked back at each other, looking deep into each other's eyes. They both smiled.

"Just when I thought life couldn't get any weirder." Naruto uttered.

"I guess in our line of work anything is possible." Sakura responded. She looked him over.

"Are you okay?" She spoke with great concern.

"Well," Naruto chuckled. "I think I still need some aid Sakura. My wounds are pretty bad."

Sakura quickly scanned his body with her eyes, but she didn't find any wounds. Her healing skills were seriously amped by the Lunar mark.

"Naruto I-" Naruto looked back at her with a sly but loving grin.

"Ahhh," she tapped his nose with a joking frown. "You're such a moron you know that?"

"Maybe so." Naruto took Sakura's marked hand into his, and the emblems glowed.

"But you're definitely **my **moron." She giggled softly, and rested her forehead on his.

"I always will be, Sakura. I always will." Naruto paused, glancing down at his hand. He wasn't sure if he was feeling bold because of his death experience, the surge of power he felt from his new power, or the fact that Sakura's eyes looked absolutely beautiful, practically glowing in the night sky. But whatever the reason, he couldn't help but speak his mind to try to tell Sakura how much he meant to her.

"You're my glowing moon Sakura." He said." She stared into his eyes.

"You give me light in the darkest hours. When I'm lost, I can look up and know you're there, giving me strength. Looking at you, I don't think I'll ever understand what I did to deserve you, but I promise I'll make it up to you every day of my life. I love you, Sakura Haruno." Sakura felt at a loss for words. She was stunned. The moron could still surprise her in the best ways. He was amazing like that.

"Oh Naruto. You're not just my moron, you're my shining star. I feel your warmth in me even when I'm alone. Whenever I'm sad or afraid, I know you'll always be there for me. Every day I feel so lucky, so blessed to have realized how much you loved me, and I will always be with you. I love you, Naruto Uzumaki." She smiled.

"Now shut up and kiss me already." She let out a wry smile, and Naruto softly laughed.

"I thought you'd never ask."

Naruto and Sakura closed their eyes, and kissed each other with joyous passion. Holding each other tight, they both knew the other would stay forever by their side. Intertwined in life and death as the sun and moon. Through all the battles and loss, they would always be there for each other, fighting for their ideals. For their home. For their friends. For each other.

* * *

_One burns_

_One chills._

_In concert, both spell doom._

_ The sun will reveal your evils_

_ The moon shall leave you in darkness._

_ A duo bound by fate and by the divine._

_Run all who seek to challenge them._

_ Granted power by the six paths,_

_ their might knows no limits,_

_ their minds know no fear._

_ you aim to fight them, to battle death,_

_ your life shall freeze in the night,_

_ your life will burn in the day._

_Run from the village hidden in leaves._

_ Do not linger in their home,_

_for the fool who batters the innocent,_

_who seeks war, will know true fear._

_ As the Sun and Moon shine from above._


End file.
